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Wednesday, June 19, 2013

The following clip of Russell Brand's comedic coup on Morning Joe really tickled me pink.
I just watched it again because it was just so good.
I like how he starts off polite, and pretty much the only person making sense, or talking about anything remotely interesting or worthwhile.
The Snowden/Manning drop is brilliant, as is his managing to drop in everything that is wrong with news shows in the US as the anchorwoman drinks from her cup like a fourteen year old with the American flag waving behind her.

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

The death obsessed thing never really worked out for me as a teen. I went the hyper, colorful route instead. Although, one of my best friends had the whole gothic teen thing down to a T.

Nevertheless, I still had a relatively angsty adolescence (who doesn't?), which exhausted my parents, but fortunately granted them a relatively normal college-era Annabelle. Then, of course, the tumult resounded shortly after, as these phases go. Well, I've been pretty mellowed out for the last three to four years, so I guess it's time to flip shit upside down and think about death for a while. Upon reading Julian Barnes' Nothing To Be Frightened Of, I was happy to learn that he references some of my favorites from the start... Montaigne, Shostakovitch, Stravinsky... This will be a good ride, I think.

Starting the book in bed last night to Shostakovitch's String Quartet No. 15, with an open window and the supplementary sound of pouring rain, made me forget that I am supposed to be in a terrible mood. Maybe Barnes is onto something... By thinking about death more often, you not only learn how to live, but you appreciate that you are alive.

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

I guess they found an underwater city in April, and I didn't know about it!

According to The Telegraph, the legendary city of "Heracleion disappeared beneath the Mediterranean around 1,200 years ago." Helen of Troy and Paris most likely made out here. Some of the most exciting trade the Mediterranean has ever seen probably passed through here. And now this famously extravagant city and all of its treasures and glory now buried under ocean floor sediment.

Monday, June 3, 2013

I am writing to let you know what is going on in Istanbul for the last five days. I personally have to write this because most of the media sources are shut down by the government and the word of mouth and the internet are the only ways left for us to explain ourselves and call for help and support.

Four days ago a group of people most of whom did not belong to any specific organization or ideology got together in Istanbul’s Gezi Park. Among them there were many of my friends and students. Their reason was simple: To prevent and protest the upcoming demolishing of the park for the sake of building yet another shopping mall at very center of the city. There are numerous shopping malls in Istanbul, at least one in every neighborhood! The tearing down of the trees was supposed to begin early Thursday morning. People went to the park with their blankets, books and children. They put their tents down and spent the night under the trees. Early in the morning when the bulldozers started to pull the hundred-year-old trees out of the ground, they stood up against them to stop the operation.

They did nothing other than standing in front of the machines.

No newspaper, no television channel was there to report the protest. It was a complete media black out.

But the police arrived with water cannon vehicles and pepper spray. They chased the crowds out of the park.

In the evening the number of protesters multiplied. So did the number of police forces around the park. Meanwhile local government of Istanbul shut down all the ways leading up to Taksim square where the Gezi Park is located. The metro was shut down, ferries were cancelled, roads were blocked.

Yet more and more people made their way up to the center of the city by walking.

They came from all around Istanbul. They came from all different backgrounds, different ideologies, different religions. They all gathered to prevent the demolition of something bigger than the park:

The right to live as honorable citizens of this country.

They gathered and marched. Police chased them with pepper spray and tear gas and drove their tanks over people who offered the police food in return. Two young people were run over by the panzers and were killed. Another young woman, a friend of mine, was hit in the head by one of the incoming tear gas canisters. The police were shooting them straight into the crowd. After a three hour operation she is still in Intensive Care Unit and in very critical condition. As I write this we don’t know if she is going to make it. This blog is dedicated to her.

These people are my friends. They are my students, my relatives. They have no «hidden agenda» as the state likes to say. Their agenda is out there. It is very clear. The whole country is being sold to corporations by the government, for the construction of malls, luxury condominiums, freeways, dams and nuclear plants. The government is looking for (and creating when necessary) any excuse to attack Syria against its people’s will.

On top of all that, the government control over its people’s personal lives has become unbearable as of late. The state, under its conservative agenda passed many laws and regulations concerning abortion, cesarean birth, sale and use of alcohol and even the color of lipstick worn by the airline stewardesses.

People who are marching to the center of Istanbul are demanding their right to live freely and receive justice, protection and respect from the State. They demand to be involved in the decision-making processes about the city they live in.

What they have received instead is excessive force and enormous amounts of tear gas shot straight into their faces. Three people lost their eyes...

About Me

I'm an LA transplant now living in Brooklyn. I develop film projects by day, write at night, and have a dangerous predilection for vintage Robinson Golluber scarves- this blog serves as a tiny window to everything else I do when I'm not satisfying those first three passions. I'm trying to blog more and tweet less @annabelleqv. What about you?